The HUB Foundation for Organoid Technology and STEMCELL Technologies Sign Agreement on the Manufacturing of Cell Culture Media for Organoids

The HUB Foundation for Organoid Technology and STEMCELL Technologies Sign Agreement on the Manufacturing of Cell Culture Media for Organoids

01/21/2014

UTRECHT, January 17, 2014 - The HUB Foundation for Organoid Technology announced today that it has signed a licensing agreement with STEMCELL Technologies Inc. for the manufacturing and worldwide distribution of cell culture media for growing Organoids. Organoids are mini-organs grown in tissue culture from small pieces of tissue derived from patients with cancer and other diseases, and represent an exciting new tool for scientific research and drug discovery and validation.

“We are pleased that STEMCELL will be our partner in making specialty media for growth of organoids available to the scientific community”, says Prof. Hans Clevers, one of the founding directors of the HUB. “The broad availability of off-the-shelf cell culture media from a world leader in the development of specialized cell culture media and cell separation products represents an essential step in the further implementation of this exciting technology”.

“We are delighted to bring these important culture media products quickly and reliably to researchers for the growth of tissue-specific organoids, and to be the exclusive commercial supplier,” says Dr. Allen Eaves, CEO and President of STEMCELL Technologies. “The first product under this license will be released soon for culture of murine organoids, with products for human tissue to follow”.

The HUB is a not-for-profit organization founded by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences and the University Medical Center Utrecht. The HUB exploits the pioneering work of Prof. Hans Clevers who discovered methods to grow stem cell-derived human ‘mini-organs’ (organoids) from tissues of patients with various diseases. The organoids, that are part of the Living Biobank, are characterized by genome sequencing, expression profiling and sensitivity to known and experimental drugs to establish a database linking genetic and transcriptional information to drug responsiveness. The HUB offers licenses to its patented Organoid Technology for drug-screening and access to organoids in the Living Biobank for preclinical drug discovery and validation. In addition, the HUB provides drug screening services to third parties.

About STEMCELL Technologies

As Scientists Helping Scientists, STEMCELL Technologies is committed to providing high-quality cell culture media, cell isolation products and accessory reagents for life science research. Driven by science and a passion for quality, STEMCELL Technologies provides over 1500 products to more than 70 countries worldwide. Our specialty cell culture reagents, instruments and tools are designed to support science along the basic to translational research continuum. To learn more, visit www.stemcell.com .